You press send in your wallet, the balance drops, and then there's a pause. For most donors that pause is the only mysterious part of crypto giving. This article removes the mystery: here is every step a donation takes, roughly how long each one lasts, and what to do on the rare occasions something goes sideways.
Step 1 — You choose an amount and a coin
At the donation page you pick the amount, the cryptocurrency you want to give in, and the program the gift should support — food, shelter, medical care, children's education or emergency relief. TraceGood accepts over 200 coins and networks, so the same $50 can arrive as bitcoin, as USDT on Tron, as SOL, or as something far more obscure. If you're undecided, the accepted coins list shows which networks are available and which ones charge you the least to move.
Name and email are optional fields. Leaving them blank does not affect the donation; it only affects whether we can email you afterwards.
Step 2 — The processor issues an address
TraceGood uses a NOWPayments hosted checkout. When you confirm your choice, the processor generates a payment address specific to your donation, along with:
- the exact amount to send in your chosen coin, quoted at the current rate,
- the network that address belongs to (the same ticker can exist on several chains),
- sometimes a memo or destination tag, and
- a countdown, because the quoted exchange rate is only held for a limited window.
That address is what ties your transaction to your gift. It is not a shared wallet where every donation lands in a heap — it's how the processor recognises your payment when it arrives.
If the checkout displays a memo or destination tag, it is not optional. Coins like XLM, TON, XRP and ATOM route funds to the right account using that tag. An address without its tag is an envelope without an apartment number.
Step 3 — You send from your wallet
Copy the address, or scan the QR code, and send from your wallet or exchange account. Three details decide whether this goes smoothly: the address, the network, and the memo. Copy-paste them, never retype them, and check the network selector in your wallet matches the one on the checkout page before you confirm.
If you're sending from an exchange, note that exchanges add their own withdrawal fee on top of the network fee, and some hold withdrawals for a security review. That delay is on their side, not the blockchain's. Our fee calculator compares what different networks cost you.
Step 4 — The network confirms it
Once broadcast, your transaction sits in the network's queue until a block includes it. Each subsequent block stacked on top is another confirmation — a further layer of work that would have to be undone for the transaction to be reversed. More confirmations means more certainty that the payment is permanent, which is why processors wait for a few before treating funds as settled rather than acting on the first sighting.
How long that takes depends entirely on the chain:
| Network | Roughly how often blocks are produced | What that feels like |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | About ten minutes | Usually minutes, occasionally longer when the mempool is busy |
| Ethereum | About twelve seconds | Typically under a minute to a few minutes |
| Solana | Well under a second | Seconds |
| Tron, BNB Chain, Polygon | A few seconds | Seconds to a minute |
Bitcoin isn't slow because it's old-fashioned; it's slow on purpose. Its ten-minute target keeps the network stable across thousands of independent miners worldwide, and the security model assumes you'll wait for a handful of blocks. Solana produces blocks continuously and reaches finality in seconds, so a donation there is usually settled before you've closed the tab. Neither is better — they're different trade-offs, and both deliver the same money.
The fee you attach matters too: a Bitcoin or Ethereum transaction sent with a low fee during a congested period can sit unconfirmed for hours. It will normally still arrive.
Step 5 — The processor marks it settled
When the required confirmations arrive, the processor updates the payment status from waiting, to confirming, to finished, and notifies us. At that point the donation is real money on our side, and it moves into the accounting for the program you chose.
Step 6 — It appears on the public ledger
Every confirmed gift is published on our public ledger with the date, the amount and ticker, the network, the program it supports, and — where the network exposes it — a link straight to the transaction on a block explorer. No names, no emails, no order numbers: only what is already public on-chain.
This is the part we consider non-negotiable. You don't have to take our word that your donation arrived; you can look it up yourself. If you want to check it against the chain directly, we wrote a walkthrough on verifying a donation on the blockchain.
Step 7 — The receipt email
If you entered an email address, we send a confirmation once the gift settles. It contains the amount, the coin, the program, the transaction reference and a link to verify it.
One thing that email says plainly, and that we'll repeat here: it is a confirmation of your donation, not a tax receipt. TraceGood is newly founded and its charitable registration is still being finalised, so please don't rely on that message for a deduction. Whether any gift is deductible depends on the recipient's registration status in your jurisdiction, and you should confirm that before claiming anything. We cover what records are worth keeping either way in our guide to receipts and record-keeping.
If you left the email field blank, nothing is sent — but your gift still appears on the public ledger, and your transaction hash is still permanent proof.
When something goes wrong
Crypto is unforgiving about details, and occasionally a donation doesn't land cleanly. Here's what each failure looks like and what to do.
You sent less than the quoted amount. The processor marks the payment partially paid. We record the gift for the amount that actually arrived, so nothing is lost — the ledger simply shows the smaller figure.
You sent on the wrong network. This is the one that genuinely hurts. USDT on Tron sent to an Ethereum address, or BNB Chain funds sent to a native-chain address, may be recoverable through manual intervention or may be permanently stuck, depending on the chains involved. Contact us immediately with the transaction hash and don't send anything else in the meantime.
You forgot the memo or tag. The payment lands but can't be matched automatically. It is usually recoverable manually. Send us the transaction hash.
The invoice expired before you paid. If you haven't sent anything yet, just start a new donation — nothing is lost. If you sent funds after the countdown ran out, the rate quote no longer applies; get in touch with the hash so we can reconcile it by hand.
In every one of these cases the fix begins the same way: send the transaction hash. It's the one piece of information that uniquely identifies your payment, and with it almost any mix-up can be traced. Use our contact page and include the hash, the coin and network you used, and roughly when you sent it.
The short version
Pick a coin, send to the address shown (with the memo, on the right network), wait for the chain to confirm, and watch it appear on the ledger. Most donations complete in under two minutes. The rest is arithmetic.
If anything here is still unclear, the FAQ and the step-by-step guide go further — or you can simply make a gift and follow it along the chain yourself.